Déjà vu all over again for Dogs in Knoxville

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Few postgame locker rooms had more of a funereal vibe than Georgia’s after a 2007 drubbing at Neyland Stadium.

Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford seemed on the verge of tears as he struggled to explain how the Volunteers defeated the Bulldogs so soundly. The game was a failure in every sense for Georgia, and a promising season seemed to be teetering on the brink of disaster.

Sound familiar?

That’s exactly how it felt outside the Bulldogs’ locker room Saturday after another humiliating loss to the Volunteers, this time by a 45-19 margin.

“It was the same type of deal. I think they definitely outplayed us, but I don’t think we just laid down,” said Georgia quarterback Joe Cox, who was 19-for-34 for 146 yards and two interceptions. “We had a lot of things just go wrong. There were a couple times where we still had a chance to be in the ballgame, but things just kept slipping away. But as far as just getting beat like that, yeah it does feel like 2007.”

The last thing anyone expected after that loss two years ago was that it would be the turning point in the Bulldogs’ season. They edged Vanderbilt the following week to begin an unlikely seven-game winning streak. By season’s end, they were widely viewed as the hottest team in the nation and ranked No. 2 in the final Associated Press poll.

If there’s anything the Bulldogs can take away from Saturday’s embarrassment in Knoxville, it’s that they’ve been in this exact same situation and managed to rebound.

“There’s a lot of guys who went through that experience who are still on this team, who can still offer that leadership to the young guys and let them know that we can bounce back,” said Georgia linebacker Rennie Curran, who received his first significant playing time against the Vols as a freshman that day. “Things were looking really bad. Things were looking really down. But we can still overcome it.”

Whether these Bulldogs are capable of a similar recovery is a matter of conjecture. That team rode quarterback Matthew Stafford, tailback Knowshon Moreno and an opportunistic defense to wins in each game for the rest of that season. Those stars are gone and the defense has regressed, having allowed 35 or more points in six of their last 12 games.

Then again, there was little reason after the 2007 loss – when the Vols led 28-0 at halftime before letting up in the second half en route to a 35-14 win – to believe things would begin to click the way they did.

The Bulldogs can only hope they have another such turnaround within them.

“That’s the only thing that we can do is look at it that way,” Cox said. “That’s what we expect to do now. We’re in a hole and we’ve got to find a way to get out.”

Georgia can begin digging out of that hole next week when it visits Vanderbilt, followed by a bye week and a trip to Jacksonville to face Florida.

Oddly enough, this month-long stretch on the schedule is exactly the same as the Bulldogs’ slate in 2007 when their season made an abrupt about-face.